Organizational Culture, Knowledge Structures, and Relational Messages in Organizational Negotiation: A Systems Approach1

It is no secret that contract negotiation in higher education has proven to be a complex and occasionally problematic process. A quick Google search of “faculty strike ” displays 12,600,000 unique news articles, citing the woeful state of collective bargaining in higher education. It has not always been this way, though, especially not for Central Michigan University (CMU). CMU has successfully negotiated with as many as nine unions on campus, without much issue. In fact, the university had never seen impasse result in a strike until 2012. However, the discord resulting from the collective bargaining process between the CMU administration and Faculty Association (FA) became the “most significant causal factor to deteriorating campus relationships” demonstrating the impact collective bargaining can have across an entire university climate, not just in the bargaining room (Moore, 2012, p. 7)